callivert - 1:34 am on Apr 19, 2007 (gmt 0)

The following were not invented by the government

My point was that scientific breakthroughs are usually the result of government backed public sector research. Technology on the other hand is the domain of the market. If that violates your worldview, adjust the worldview.
There are exceptions to both, sure, but the list you gave mostly contains clever technological applications, which just reinforces the point. Webmasterworld, with all respect to Brett, is not equivalent to the moon landings. (And btw "language" is not an invention per se, any more than sex, friendship, and nostalgia are inventions.)
Getting back to the thread, the kind of technology required for identifying copyrighted segments of video would require something of a scientific breakthrough, and is more likely to emerge from a major MIT or CMU undertaking, than a room at the back of the 'plex. Google are great at technology. They don't do science.